FigJam is a seamlessly user-friendly and completely free interactive digital whiteboard tool. It serves a multitude of purposes, from facilitating collaborative learning to enabling formative assessment and streamlining classroom management.
When I was playing around with the collaborative whiteboard, I was consistently impressed by how finely it was attuned to the needs of both teachers and students, and how many insights it provide into the ways we can engage in collaborative learning, whether inside or outside of the classroom. It was a real surprise to find a tool as functional as this, yet completely free for educators.
Just can't wait to show you my findings about this interesting website! So, buckle up and let's dive right in!
Scenarios and Solutions:
Scenario 1: Formative Feedback and Collaborative Learning
You are exploring the characters in a fairy tale with your class today using an activity called "role on the wall". You're curious about if your students have any question about the linguistic elements or the content, but questions such as "Do you have any question?" seem to be fruitless.
Figjam's Solution:
Figjam provides several handy channels for the participants to express themselves, such as sticky notes, stamps, comments, and real-time messages. The teacher can ask students to put a ❓ stamp on content they don't understand. A number of stamps can indicate that this content requires further clarification or revision. In the example provided below, some students seem to have trouble understanding the descriptive adjectives. As students can choose to remain anonymous, they may be more likely to pose their question without hesitation. Moreover, students can answer each other's questions through commenting, thus creating a collaborative learning environment.
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| self-created "role on the wall" template on Figjam |
Scenario 2: Decision Making
You are planning a class trip and you want to fully engage your students in the decision process but a whole class discussion may fail to collect every student's opinion and issuing a paper questionnaire might be too time-consuming.
Figjam's Solution:
With Figjam easy-to-use plugins like alignment scale, simple vote, Figmap and so on, teachers can easily assign decision making tasks by asking students to simply stamp, click or add a sticky note. The whole process can be facilitated by its build-in ambient music and timer. Also, Figjam can automatically count the votes for the teacher.
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| Self-created voting template on Figjam |
Scenario 3: Multimedia Task-based Language Learning
Your students have diverse role models. In order to better understand them as well as providing them with a chance to use English in ways that motivate them, you decide to divide them into groups to do a multimedia presentation introducing their classmates about their role models. However, you are quite aware that finding, sharing and archiving multimedia materials can be time-consuming and daunting.
Figjam's Solution:
In Figjam, one can easily embed a range of media types (e.g., music, video, audio, document, photo, image) through multiple ways, like copy and paste, import and plugins (including well-known copy-free HD image websites and AI generators). With no need for downloads, users can effortlessly play and pause media, capture selfies, edit shared documents, and even remove backgrounds from images—all within the platform. This streamlined process eliminates the hassle of managing multiple files and websites simultaneously. What's more, Figjam allows users to make audio streamings, which allow students to present their role models even when offline interaction is restricted. |
| Self-created presentation toolkit on Figjam |
Of course, as a highly flexible tool with tons of open-source plugins and a generous community of a group of creative and prolific users, Figjam can be tailored to more scenarios, such as classroom management, small group project or even creating a virtual classroom where teachers and students can share the extensive resources on a virtual bookshelf and homework can be assigned on a bulletin board!
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| Self-created classroom management toolkit on Figjam |
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| Project planner template from Figjam community |
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| A virtual classroom template from Figma community |
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| font options of Figjam |
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| Figjam's toolbar |
Some Considerations for Potential Users:
While FigJam's live streaming function sets it apart from many other digital whiteboards, it's not quite ready to replace dedicated online webinar platforms. This is primarily due to its lack of support for video streaming and a "present" function, where a simple click could transition the display from one content to another seamlessly. Furthermore, despite its easy embedment function, FigJam users face limitations in adjusting the sizes of embedded links (such as YouTube videos or shared documents), widgets, or plugins as flexibly as they can adjust shapes and images. This can result in imbalanced display ratios, leading to constant zooming to maintain a cohesive visual experience.
I will stop my recommendation here, but I hope this blog can encourage you to explore the collaborative playground on your own. Happy exploration!
Further Suggestions:
I discovered Figjam through a video on this channel, and many of the other contents they provide are also worth checking out!
As usual, your content is incredibly informative, enriched with multimedia elements like pictures and videos. It's engaging and provides a comprehensive understanding of this collaborative playground, Figjam!
ReplyDeleteI can't help trying this tool in my lesson plan currently because I like the way it points out the problem like scenario and then provide the solution.
ReplyDeleteI remember that my undergraduate course taught us to use smart interactive whiteboards for classroom design, but the software at that time was far less useful than this.
ReplyDelete